George Whitefield: A Biography, with special reference to his labors in America

Now truth, perform thine office, waft aside
The curtain drawn by prejudice and pride,
Reveal – the man is dead – to wondering eyes,
This more than monster, in his proper guise.
He loved the world that hated him; the tear
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere:
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was – a blameless life;
And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed,
Were copied close in him, and well transcribed.
He followed Paul – his zeal a kindred flame,
His apostolic charity the same.
Like him, crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas,
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease.
Like him he labored, and like him, content
To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went.
Blush, calumny! and write upon his tomb,
If honest eulogy can spare the room,
Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies,
Which, aimed at him, have pierced the offended skies;
And say, Blot out my sin, confessed, deplored,
Against thine image, in thy saint, O Lord.'

"What but a guilty cowardice is it, a false and pusillanimous shame, that keeps us in these days from some novel and bolder method of aggression upon the domain of darkness? Are we not wanting here in that moral courage which would make us, when conscious of doing right, indifferent to the stare of the ignorant, and the wonder of the timid; to the shaft of ridicule, and the malignant censure of the cynic? How enslaved are we by the fetters of custom, or restrained by the trammels of conventiality! How little are we disposed to go out of the usual track, even in saving souls! Very few are disposed to imitate the boldness, ingenuity, and novelty of that noble-hearted brother,[4 - The Rev. Richard Knill of Chester, formerly a missionary in India, and afterwards in Russia, since deceased. – B.] who hired a disengaged theatre in the city where he dwelt, and for four months preached there to listening and well-behaved crowds, the gospel of salvation; and for his reward had very many given to him, who are his joy now, and will be his crown of rejoicing in the presence of Christ at his coming. Who can see Paul on Mars-Hill, addressing himself to the sages and their followers of all sects, and preaching to them a doctrine so repugnant to the mythology of the temple and the philosophy of the schools, as Christ, the last judgment, and the resurrection of the body, without being impressed with the moral courage of such an act? It is this spiritual heroism that is wanted in our modern preaching, and indeed, which was no less needful when the Methodistic company commenced their preaching.

"Nor is it only in this unwillingness to go off from our own ground for saving souls that our guilty cowardice is seen, but in the disposition to shirk the more solemn and searching truths of revelation. Are we not giving way too much to the fastidiousness of modern taste and refinement, which is craving after smooth things; which desires the sentimental, the picturesque, the imaginative, but turns with disgust from the solemn, the alarming, the awakening? Are we not too gentle and courteous to mention such a word as 'hell' to modern ears polite? Are we not too fearful to break in with the thunders of a violated law upon those who are at ease in Zion? I do not ask for a gross, revolting method of describing the punishment of the wicked, as if the preacher delighted in harrowing up the feelings of his audience. This is as disgusting as if, in order to keep men from crime, our judges and magistrates were ever and anon giving a minute detail of the process of an execution, and the convulsive pangs of an expiring wretch suspended to the beam of the gibbet. We ask not for a harsh, scolding, and denunciating style of preaching; but we do want more of the unflinching boldness, and the dauntless courage, which, are necessary to fidelity, and absolutely essential to him who would win souls to Christ. It is too generally forgotten, that our Lord Jesus, who was incarnate love, was the most solemn and awful of all preachers. He whose gentle spirit so often breathed out itself in invitation, and whose compassion melted into tears, at other times robed himself in terror, and uttered the most alarming peals of divine indignation. What we need for our ministry is this mixture of tenderness and solemnity, which entered so deeply into the ministry of Christ, and was so characteristic of his servant, whose labors we this day commemorate and commend."

Hear also the Rev. John Glanville, the present successor of Whitefield in the Tabernacle at Bristol: "And such preaching must continue, if the world is to be saved. Nothing but this is suited to man's necessities; nothing else can meet man's miseries. The battle must be fought with the old, well-tried, but not worn-out weapons. God has provided them, and we must use them. We require nothing else; the world has not outgrown the old gospel, so as to need something new to soothe its sorrows and satisfy its wants.

"Not that ministers can now produce the effect Whitefield did. He was a man standing alone. The charm and power of his preaching have never been explained. It was all fire and flame, shooting out red-hot thunderbolts against the citadels of sin. It was an undivided soul, solemnly consecrated to one object – an entire life, zealously employed in one thing. As he preached, every feature spoke, the whole man became vocal, and the truth of God stood out in its full proportions and beauty, in the bright and broad daylight of heaven. So unreserved was his self-consecration, that every thing was deemed impertinent which obtruded upon, or interfered with the one great end of his existence. He lived in communion with God – more in heaven than on earth. He was much at the foot of the throne, and got his strength there; he prevailed with men, because he had prevailed with God. His whole soul was filled with life, and fired with love, from being in habitual contact with the cross.

"And we must pursue the same course, and try to do the same thing. We have the power, and we must bring it forth and use it. God has given the machinery, and it is for us to set it in motion. The world is perishing, and we must save it; it is dying, and we must give it life. God from his eternal throne calls us – Christ from his bleeding cross speaks to us – voices from the abodes of sin, and the regions of despair, sound in our ears. And we all, as ministers and as members, must rise up in the vigor of piety and the fervor of prayer. We must rise up from the slumbers of selfishness, and tear off the fetters of the world, and act as those who believe in the existence of an eternal heaven and an eternal hell, and that all souls will be found in the one or in the other – as those who have a great work to do, and but a short and uncertain time to do it in. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old."

notes

1

Dr. Prince, in a note, here says, "Though people were then," in the time of the earthquake, "generally frightened, and many awakened to such a sense of their duty as to offer themselves to our communion, yet very few came to me then under deep convictions of their unconverted and lost condition, in comparison of what came now. Nor did those who came to me then, come so much with the inquiry, 'What shall we do to be saved?' as to signify they had such a sense of their duty to come to the Lord's table that they dare not stay away any longer."

2

The New York Evangelist, in 1830, made the remark, that "Whitefield would have lost much of his oratorical influence on his hearers, had his speaking eyes been covered with a pair of modern spectacles."

3

See Dr. John M. Mason's Funeral Sermon for Mrs. Graham.

4

The Rev. Richard Knill of Chester, formerly a missionary in India, and afterwards in Russia, since deceased. – B.